Everyday Matters Challenge

Some time ago I mentioned doing some exercises from The Creative License by Danny Gregory. He's known for illustrating everyday things and encouraging others to take part. I visited his blog this morning and saw that he's attempting to go through the "Everyday Matters Challenge", exercises that were devised by someone else where each week a new subject to be drawn would be submitted. There's 300 some topics listed, and I decided to start off where he last left off, which was #4 - draw your mug or cup.

There's potential to do something every day, so do check back to see if I'm doing my homework. I did this one on some pretty heavy watercolor paper, which didn't make it the best for using a brush tip pen. Shading done with pencil and a micron pen.

Still Here

I feel like I've been a bit absent lately. For all those Americans out there, happy 4th of July. While you are all BBQ'ing and watching fireworks in the heat, it's winter in Australia, albeit mild compared to a winter in the Midwest.

I've been doodling recently but not so much sketching on location like I have done in the past few months. I'm thinking of directions I may want to go, not only with drawing but other things as well. Here are a couple of sketches I did some months ago around the gardens in Haifa.

I'm also on the hunt for a new sketchbook. The ecosystem notebook I bought earlier this year worked out well enough but I'm looking for something different. While I would love to buy everything in an art store, I end up paralyzed by choice, leaving wanting everything but buying nothing. Oh well, it's probably for the best :) 

Weekend wrap up

 Bahji

This past weekend I had both Friday and Saturday off, what a novelty. Since my husband and I are leaving Haifa soon, our schedules are quickly filling up, more than when we left the first time last year. I'm glad to have a second chance at connecting with people who I may not even had gotten to know very well before. Yesterday we went to Bahji, which was nice. I'll miss those peaceful moments.

One of the things I like doing is taking note of any new birds I come across in my routine. When we were walking back to the Bahji Visitors' Centre, we came across some bird tracks in the sand.

Not much further away were the same ones but tiny!

Well, it is spring, isn't it? On our way back out to the road a pair of Spur-winged Lapwings swooped at us after we got too close trying to take their photo. It quickly occurred to us that they must have built their nest on the mulch covered traffic island. Funny that they chose there of all places. 

Work in Progress

On Thursdays we have an hour and a half lunch period versus the usual hour. I wanted to get out a little  so I ate lunch quickly and walked a bit up the mountain to try to get in a quick sketch. Couldn't finish everything I wanted so I'll have to go back sometime soon to complete it. Will post final product once it's done :)

In Retrospect

Rehov Ha-Atzma'ut (Independence Street)

Zebra Cafe

Had a longer weekend this past week, which meant that we got to start our work week on Monday instead of Sunday. How novel. Went out to a few places, taking advantage of the good weather. My body was sore from all the walking up and down the mountain. It's all good though. Managed to do a bit of sketching. The first being after my art store errand. Of course I keep carrying around the faded out brush pen. *That's* what I should have bought. The second is from this little burger joint on one of the more eclectic streets in Haifa. The owners are French. The food is good and cheap and they have a good dessert--tarte tatin! My camera battery needed a good charging. Of course I couldn't locate the charger which equals lack of real time photos.

I only have one more month left in Israel. These past two months have gone where? Hoping to make the most of it--seeing, sketching, and exploring all the things I can before I change locations again.

Amongst the trees

Another quick drawing in the gardens after work Friday. Things were quiet except for the birds who were active as ever. In the distance I heard a kingfisher, which at that point I hadn't seen since I'd been back. The ink in my brush pen seemed to be phasing out -- an unfortunate occurrence after it uncapped itself in my bag -- but it worked long enough for the exercise. The texture, of course, was added later.

The initial sketch reminded me a little of Van Gogh's olive tree paintings. I'm kind of a fan of Impressionism so maybe I'll explore more with those types of visible strokes. I have some other things in mind as well. It's a wonder the things that nature will inspire you to do!

Olive Grove by Van Gogh

To pass the time

Last night Chad and I went to Agadir for some burgers after dropping off our dry cleaning. I take my notebook with me everywhere but I was kind of hesitant to pull it out and start sketching. Some minutes in I finally convinced myself to do something while we waited for our orders. I only got in my Coke bottle and glass but anything is better than nothing. The waitress gave a compliment in passing. Guess you never know what will people react to.

Tonight, not much going on. Got in a couple of quick drawings of one of the pots in our flat while waiting for the Internet to start acting properly. One of the up sides of having a big time consumer out of commission is to subsequently be forced to do other things.

A rose is a rose

I've been pre-occupied this past week so I haven't done much in the way of drawing. I'm in the process of figuring out what I need to do before I make the big move to Australia, with a little detour in between. Airline tickets, travel insurance, purging my possessions, the whole nine. Today is my one-year anniversary. Yesterday I was surprised with a delivery of flowers, the subject of today's sketch.

Illustration Friday - Suspense

This week's Illustration Friday theme is suspense. It immediately made me think of crime dramas and film noir so I decided to experiment a little more with ink. 

Test Run

Last week I had decided that it was time for another sketchbook. I still have pages left in an older one I bought but wanted something with a little less texture and more pen/marker friendly. I don't know how many reviews I read online, but after all of that I found myself in a paper shop after work a couple of days ago and settled on an ecosystem artist journal.

As it was wrapped, I didn't really know what to expect of the paper. The pages are really smooth and it holds ink fairly well without bleed through. This morning I pocketed one of my Faber-Castell brush pens and did a little sketch of a narwhal during lunch to try it out.

I like the look of pen work and plan to do some more in the future. In the meantime, I've been trying to work on the Oregon map during my off hours. Some things are fairly self explanatory but because I'm still not very proficient in Illustrator, and my vision is not quite formed, it's a little slow going. I'll keep at it though.